The Scottish Government has been keen to stress the importance of making sure there are enough affordable homes.
Ministers at Holyrood have talked up the building of brand new social housing, and also brought an end to Margaret Thatcher’s monumental right to buy policy last year to protect the existing social stock north of the border.
But the latest building figures will be worrying reading for the SNP administration. The show 1,592 affordable homes were built between in the latest financial quarter – 6% less than the same period last year.
Nicola Sturgeon’s administration aims to have 50,000 affordable homes built over five years under the Scottish Government’s Affordable Housing Supply Programme.
But Shelter Scotland warned that the plan was not yet on track, noting that last year only 7,336 affordable homes were built.
“This is just 14% of the Scottish Government’s five-year target to build 50,000 new affordable homes,” said Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland.